The Obstacles and Hardships of Awkward Human Interaction.

Human interaction is odd, isn't it? There are certain dos and don'ts when we speak to people. When people ask you how you are, they are not really asking how you are; it's just the polite small talk at the beginning of a conversation. In response you smile sweetly and say good, even when you are not.

At a party when there are people you sort of know but don't, and when you lock eyes, you know you have to speak or at least give them a hello. Then you are stuck there in that conversation waiting for the space where you can leave and move on to a more promising one. You hope that a third party will join and save both of you on that sinking awkward ship that is your conversation. Later, you hate yourself for the stupid comments that you made under pressure and soon realize what a total idiot you must have seemed. You couldn’t have asked them about what they were studying, could you? No, you had to lie and come up with something to keep the conversation alive… I DON'T EVEN PLAY ON A TABLE TENNIS TEAM. At night you beat yourself up about it and, along with that, remember everything else embarrassing you have done for the past nineteen years of your life.

That situation when you're saying hello to the group of people you know and there is that one person you don't know and you have to decide what to do. Do you hug them? Do you do the kiss on the cheek? The shake of the hand? The awkward hand wave in their face? Or, when it gets really bad, ignore them completely. How do you know what they want? The call is tough, but needs to be made in the first two seconds of eye contact. You go for the ignore and then both your eyes lock and do that awful ‘not sure, nice to meet you’ smile.

It’s when your mother sets the table when your brother brings back his girlfriend for the very first time. Everyone sits down and your mum has saved you a seat opposite the girl you have never spoken to. You are forced to make eye contact for the whole entire time but neither one of you make direct conversation. You just smile, put your dish in the washing machine, and head for the hills.

It's the pretending you don't know someone when you are introduced but, in reality, you have seen them multiple times online. You know exactly who they are. Or when you are scrolling down on someone’s page or instagram and you pray to God that your finger does not slip and you hit the like button. And when you make that fatal mistake you scream and click the undo button, go look in the mirror and see the monster that is you. You have just liked someone’s photo from 2011. You have never spoken to them before.

And in all that, it happens over and over again and you never learn. It is a continuous cycle. You hate everyone, but then you cannot stand to be alone. And that is life: a world full of never-ending, awkward and humiliating social interaction, which is evidently inevitable. You cannot escape.

- O